


koi no yokan

by Huinari



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huinari/pseuds/Huinari
Summary: Mermaids do not fall in love at first sight - but they will know.
Relationships: Aqua | Azura/Takumi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	koi no yokan

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I can't understand myself  
> If I follow where my heart leads me  
> I'll Never Never know what I'm doing  
> I won't be able to know
> 
> -'Emotion', Mamamoo

When she was young, not yet permitted to see the surface of the ocean – the world beyond the confines of water – Arete told Azura about the love of a mermaid.

“You will know when you see them,” the queen of the merfolk said, running a comb through her hair. Long, unlike Arete’s.

Azura wrinkled her nose, because it seemed odd to her that such a thing should happen. “What would I love about them?”

What would she see about a person, that at first glance she would fall in love? A mermaid’s love was heavy. To this day, Arete wore her hair short in mourning, grieving over the passing of her husband. Azura was her only daughter, and were it not for her cousin, the only heir to the throne.

Arete pressed a kiss to her temple, and set the comb aside.

“It will not be love at first sight,” she said. “But it will be – certainty, that down the path of your life that you climb, you will love this person.”

Azura did not move her head, because her mother was pinning strings of pearls, but she did not stop the incredulous sound from escaping her lips.

Arete laughed. “You will know. You just will.”

Years later, trapped in the net of the human fishermen, Azura recalled this moment bitterly.

 _I will never know_ , she thought. Only one mermaid had escaped human captivity, but the tale she recounted was one that was retold across the oceans as a precaution for all to bear in mind.

The greed of humans was not to be underestimated, and neither was their cruelty.

The shores were so close to her, and yet so far out of reach. The vessel that humans used to travel across the ocean they could not live in had brought her to land, away from her home.

 _Stupid_ , Azura cursed herself.

“A gift, Your Highness. A creature fit for a prince.”

Azura bristled, and then hissed when a rod jabbed into her side.

“. . . show me.”

Rods poked at her again, but this time she wasn’t the target, but rather the net. The heavy nets tugged off of her, and she hissed in pain again when her hair, tangled up in the ropes, pulled as well.

With the ropes no longer pressing her down and occluding her sight, Azura could see better the humans ogling at her as if she was a spectacle. The fishermen, bowing after removing the nets. The three humans still standing.

Humans were not entirely dissimilar in customs to the merfolk, and so Azura guessed that the one in the center was the prince she was being ‘gifted’ to.

“A mermaid,” he said. He wore his hair long, like a merman would, but it was tied back. His clothes, unlike that of the fishermen, were more elaborate. His eyes were different from that of the fishermen as well. There was no greed in their brown depths, no desire.

Azura forgot to hiss, to glare, to do anything except stare, and she started when he knelt.

“Prince Takumi,” said the woman on the right, tightening her grip on the polearm she held. The man on his left, too, grabbed his sword. As if she was the threat here.

“I’m the one in the wrong here,” he replied, and then he bowed his head.

“I am sorry for this,” he said. “But I swear that you will return to the seas, unharmed – well, without further harm.”

He spoke to her, Azura realized, without speaking down to her. Or of her. Not like the fishermen, who had treated her like a feral animal, but a fellow being with reason and sentience.

“What do you want?” she asked, needing to be wary. She needed to keep her guard up.

The fishermen yelped in surprise at her words, but Azura ignored them.

The prince, however, did not seem surprised at all that she could speak. “Only that you are safely returned to your home.”

She could not accuse him of falsehood, not when his brown eyes were honest. It was confusing. He didn’t make sense. “Why?”

Humans wanted mermaids because of their songs. Their flesh and blood. Their tears. Their looks – different from that of a human’s.

The prince of humans smiled, a boyish grin. It was bright, like the sun in the waters close to the surface of the ocean. “My father once nearly died at sea, but a mermaid saved him. From then on, it has been illegal in Hoshido to harm a merfolk.”

Azura tried to not trust him, kept her guard up. But even after she was in the water, the prince never tried anything, never turned on her, never broke his word.

“What is your name?” she called, before she would dive under the waves. Something was stirring in her heart, like a tide ebbing with the moon’s movements. A certainty unfounded, an instinct.

“I am Takumi,” he replied. “Prince of Hoshido.”

 _You will know_ , Arete had said, and as always, her mother was right.

Azura raised her hands to her face, and let the tears flow. Out in the air, unable to be washed away by the ocean, they rolled off her cheeks and fell as solid pearls.

White for sorrow. Pink for love. Black for hatred.

The pearls that fell into her palms were the same color as her hair. Blue, for hope.

She took a risk, and came closer.

“Give me your hands, Prince Takumi,” she said. Too late did she realize that it may have come across as an order, but he already was reaching out.

Into his hands – bigger than hers, and more calloused, Azura noticed – she dropped her two blue tears.

“I am Azura, princess of the merfolk.”

The tears of a mermaid holding hope, given willingly, were precious to humans, and not because of their monetary value.

“Hold them close,” she said. “If you fall in water and they are on your person, you will be able to breathe in water as if you are on land.”

Azura was used to giving up, to not take risks. That was more of her cousin’s thing. Azura feared failure, feared rejection.

She feared the despair that came from hope’s fall.

It would be sensible to forget this human, to hope they never saw each other again. Love was not at first sight, not for mermaids. Avoiding further meetings would be easy.

But at the same time, Azura hoped, and though she still feared the fall, she also wanted to take that risk.

Prince Takumi gave the pearls a glance just long enough to identify them, but after that his eyes were back on her – on her face, meeting her gaze.

“I will treasure them, Princess Azura.”

Azura turned to return to her home, but she spared one last turn of the head, one last glance behind as she swam out to the deeper waters.

The human still stood where she had left him, and when he saw that she had turned her head, he waved.

 _You will know_ , Arete had said, and Azura did.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: inspired by this one Takumi/Azura art that kotaline jones did. I wrote it a while back but I never really did anything with it because I thought it wasn’t romantic and I didn’t have the energy to write more but stuff happened (good stuff).   
> https://twitter.com/kotalinejones/status/1000973133690621952  
> and of course Cousin Corrin is mentioned https://twitter.com/kotalinejones/status/1048052414203482113


End file.
